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Maquis
"But the Maquis don't live in paradise. Out there in the Demilitarized Zone, all the problems haven't been solved yet. Out there, there are no saints... just people. Angry, scared, determined people who are going to do whatever it takes to survive. Whether it meets with Federation approval or not." - Sisko, DS9 : "The Maquis, Part II" The Maquis were an organization of Federation-born colonists who organized against the Cardassian occupation of their homes in the Demilitarized Zone after their colonies were ceded to the Cardassian Union by the Treaty of 2370. The term maquis comes from a name for groups of the French Resistance that fought the German occupation during the Second World War. Background The roots of the Maquis insurrection can be traced back to the 2350s during the Cardassian wars. The Federation and the Cardassians settled a large number of Class M planets in close proximity to each other, and the issue of ownership of these colonies — as well as their security — became the causes of war. Although the Federation relinquished claims to all planets occupied by Cardassian colonies, the Cardassians sought to annex several crucial worlds along the border, including Minos Korva and Setlik III. (TNG: "The Wounded", "Chain of Command, Part I") Despite the risks of settling on worlds close to the Cardassian border, many Federation citizens, especially Humans, chose to settle on the fertile worlds in the region. Colonies including Volan II, Volan III, Saltok IV, Umoth VII, and others became thriving outposts of Federation civilization, but also became targets for the Cardassian military. By the mid-2360s, the wars had settled into an effective stalemate, with neither side gaining advantage in terms of firepower or territory. Finally, in 2367 a truce was established, that enforced an end to active hostilities but left many of the major questions of the conflict unresolved. Seeds of Resistance It took another three years for a final peace treaty to be negotiated, and although the questions of territory were finally settled, neither side was entirely happy with the solution. The Treaty of 2370 established a new Demilitarized Zone (also known as the DMZ), from which all large warships belonging to either side were excluded. Much more controversial, however, was the exchange of colonies which was to take place. The treaty stipulated that each side would transfer ownership of certain worlds. The inhabitants of those worlds would be resettled elsewhere beforehand. Despite the vehement protests of many colony leaders, the Federation Council signed the treaty. Starfleet was given the task of evacuating the colonists from their homes and transporting them to other worlds. Starfleet immediately met with resistance, however. One of the first worlds slated to be evacuated was Dorvan V, a world settled in 2350 by a group of Native Americans. The Indians claimed that they had a special, spiritual connection to their world, and refused to be evacuated. [[USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D)|USS Enterprise-D]] captain Jean-Luc Picard attempted to negotiate an agreement with the settlers, but they steadfastly refused to leave. Violence nearly broke out when Picard attempted to evacuate the settlers by force. Ultimately, an agreement was made whereby the Dorvan colonists were permitted to remain in their colony under Cardassian jurisdiction. The arrangement was approved by Gul Evek, the Cardassian official in charge of affairs in the Demilitarized Zone. (TNG: "Journey's End") Following the Dorvan agreement, colonists on many other worlds also refused to abandon their homes and demanded to be permitted to stay on their colonies. Both the Federation Council and the Cardassian Central Command acquiesced. Civil Unrest However, the resolution of the dispute did not prove to be a practical solution. Although Starfleet assigned an attaché, Lt. Commander Calvin Hudson, to the Demilitarized Zone, resentment began to fester as hardships mounted. Although the Cardassian government had officially pledged to leave the Federation colonists alone, a wide campaign of oppression began at practically the same time. Food replicators were poisoned, mobs were organized, and general harassment of the Federation colonists made life difficult at best. At the same time, the Central Command secretly began arming their own colonists on the Demilitarized Zone. By shipping the weapons through intermediaries such as the Lissepians, they managed to avoid the attention of Starfleet. The Cardassian colonists mounted the weapons — including ''Galor''-class heavy disruptors — onto shuttlecraft-sized vessels and used them to attack Federation interests. The Federation colonists did not accept these attacks passively. While Starfleet conducted "official" investigations into the situation, the colonists banded together into underground paramilitary cells, and began acquiring weapons of their own through the black market. These weapons were mounted on Federation-designed shuttles and couriers and used to defend against the Cardassian colonists' attacks. The Demilitarized Zone was becoming very militarized. Open Conflict The first open attack by the Maquis, as the Federation paramilitary groups came to be known, was against the Cardassian freighter Bok'Nor at outpost Deep Space 9. The Bok'Nor was suspected of running weapons to the Cardassian colonists in the DMZ. Maquis sympathizer William Samuels planted an implosive protomatter device on the Bok'Nor's hull, causing a catastrophic overload in the fusion reactor, destroying the ship. Barely a week later, Gul Dukat was abducted from Deep Space 9 by Maquis operatives, and taken to a class-M asteroid in the Badlands. DS9 commander Benjamin Sisko pursued, and discovered that the Maquis cell involved was led by Calvin Hudson, the Starfleet attaché and a personal friend. (DS9: "The Maquis, Part I") Sisko was eventually successful in rescuing Dukat from the Maquis. Based on intelligence obtained from Sakonna, a former Maquis member who had been influential in purchasing many of the group's ships and weapons, Sisko determined that the Maquis were planning to attack a suspected weapons depot on Bryma, a former Cardassian colony. In order to prevent the possible outbreak of a new full-scale war, Sisko intercepted the Maquis attack (which was led by his friend Hudson) and forced them to retreat. Meanwhile, after the shipments of weapons to the Cardassian colonies were exposed, the Central Command officially denied all involvement in the matter. Legate Parn placed the blame on Dukat (who was in the custody of the Maquis at the time) and a small cadre of "misguided" offiicials. Dukat later observed that he was simply used as a scapegoat to deflect the blame for the violation of the treaty away from the Central Command. (DS9: "The Maquis, Part II") Although full-scale war was avoided, the Demilitarized Zone was quickly becoming a hotbed of conflict. Now that both sides' civilian colonists possessed advanced weaponry, an underground war broke out without any direct involvement from either the Cardassian or the Federation fleets. Growing Problem In the following weeks and months, the tension continued to mount as both sides continued arming themselves for their underground war. Despite the best efforts of both Starfleet and the Central Command, the rival paramilitary groups continued to obtain weaponry through backdoor channels. Although both the Cardassians and the Federation accused the other of secretly lending official sanction to their respective colonists, these allegations were never conclusively proven. Late in 2370, the Cardassians launched an elaborate scheme to attempt to discredit the Federation's policies and to establish grounds to invade the DMZ to eliminate the Maquis. They attempted to portray the Maquis as "savage, Federation-born killers" who were operating with secret but official sanction from Starfleet Command. Using an undercover operative who had assumed the guise of former Starfleet officer Raymond Boone, the Cardassians planted a cache of photon torpedo warheads stolen from Deep Space 9 aboard a runabout piloted by Miles O'Brien, DS9's chief of operations. When the runabout was subsequently intercepted by a Cardassian patrol ship, the photon warheads provided sufficient grounds to arrest O'Brien and charge him with attempting to smuggle weapons to the Maquis. The Cardassians staged an elaborate trial under their traditional laws, loudly proclaiming O'Brien guilty of anti-Cardassian crimes and sentencing him to death. However, this ruse was ultimately discredited when the operative disguised as Boone was discovered on DS9 and taken to Cardassia Prime, and O'Brien was released. (DS9: "Tribunal") By the end of the year, a precarious stalemate had developed inside the Demilitarized Zone. However, the Maquis continued to gain strength, and continued to launch attacks against Cardassian and neutral shipping in the region. In one of their boldest offensives, a Maquis cell launched a massive attack against Gul Evek's flagship, the Vetar, crippling it before being driven off by the Enterprise-D. (TNG: "Preemptive Strike") As critical as the Maquis' offensives were, even more embarrassing were the continued stream of Starfleet officers who resigned their commissions in the Federation to join the Maquis in their fight against the Cardassians. The Maquis managed to portray themselves as the innocent victims, with their homes under attack and carelessly given away by the Federation authorities. In addition to Calvin Hudson, other Starfleet officers such as Ro Laren, Chakotay, and Thomas Riker also resigned or deserted their posts to fight "the good fight". (TNG: "Preemptive Strike," VOY: "Ex Post Facto") The Maquis also served as a haven for those disgraced from Starfleet and the Federation, such as Tom Paris (VOY: "Caretaker") and B'Elanna Torres. (VOY: "Parallax," One") Others were simply seeking an outlet for violent tendencies, like Lon Suder. (VOY: "Meld") Eventually, the Maquis included members of the Human, Vulcan, Bajoran, Betazoid, Bolian, and Klingon species. However, the Maquis were not satisfied with the delicate and armed stalemate that had developed. Thanks to the influx of personnel and unofficial support, the Maquis began expanding their operations to include larger targets. Thanks to sympathizers, they also managed to evade almost every trap that Starfleet laid for them outside the Demilitarized Zone. And thanks to the treaty, both Starfleet and the Cardassians were unable to send in sufficient armaments to eradicate them. They developed new techniques and tactics to evade pursuit, such as using thoron particles to render tricorders useless. (VOY: "Basics, Part II") In 2370, they captured a defective Cardassian weapon called Dreadnought, then reprogrammed it to attack the Cardassian fuel depot on Aschelan V, although Dreadnought disappeared in the Badlands under mysterious circumstances before it reached its target. (VOY: "Dreadnought") The Orias Assault One of the Maquis' most daring assaults occurred in early 2371. Former Starfleet officer Thomas Riker posed as his doppelgänger William T. Riker and boarded Deep Space 9. Using his counterpart's passwords and access codes, Riker gained access to the [[USS Defiant (NX-74205)|USS Defiant]], Starfleet's most powerful warship, then assigned to DS9. Using a fake warp core breach as a diversion, Riker beamed aboard several Maquis personnel from the station, hijacking the ship. Once the Defiant escaped into the Demilitarized Zone, the Maquis launched an elaborate offensive against Cardassian military outposts along the border. However, the purpose of the attacks was simply as a diversion — using the Defiant's cloaking device, Riker piloted the ship past the border patrols and launched a series of random attacks against the interior of Cardassian space. The Maquis' true objective was as surprising as it was unconventional. Riker's cell had received intelligence reports that a faction of the Cardassian government was secretly building a fleet in the Orias system, outside of the authority of the Central Command. Believing the force to be intended for an "unofficial" assault against the DMZ, the Maquis sought to destroy this new force before it could be used against them. However, Riker had not anticipated the presence of active warships operating out of Orias yet. As the Defiant approached Orias, pursued by ten Galor-class warships, it was confronted by six ''Keldon''-class heavy cruisers emerging from the system. With both his advance and retreat blocked, Riker opted to surrender. In a deal brokered by Commander Sisko and Gul Dukat, Riker agreed to stand trial on Cardassia, while the remainder of the Maquis were turned over to Federation authorities, and the Defiant returned to Starfleet control. (DS9: "Defiant") (Ironically, the secret fleet in the Orias System — which was being built by the Cardassian Obsidian Order — was not intended to fight the Maquis at all, but rather was aimed at launching a surprise attack against the Dominion.) (DS9: "Improbable Cause") (See Also: Battle of the Omarion Nebula) Chakotay's cell and the USS Voyager Former Starfleet officer Chakotay was one of the Maquis' most valued leaders, and it was for this reason Starfleet attempted to capture him in mid 2371. They installed an undercover operative, Tuvok, aboard Chakotay's ship, the Val Jean. (VOY: "Caretaker") The Cardassians were also interested in Chakotay, and placed one of their own operatives, Seska, with Chakotay's crew around the same time. (VOY: "State of Flux") Unknown at the time, a Bajoran vedek named Teero Anaydis, ejected from the Maquis for his controversial experiments with mind control, knew of Tuvok's real loyalties, and used a surgical technique based around a Vulcan mind meld to implant subconcious instructions in his mind. If necessary, Teero could transmit a message to Tuvok which would have him attack the Maquis crew members, mind-meld with them, and bring them under Teero's control. Teero was not able to implement his plan at the time, since Chakotay's raider was lost in the Badlands shortly thereafter. (VOY: "Repression") Following a battle with the Cardassian warship Vetar, the Val Jean was pulled to the Delta Quadrant by the entity known as the Caretaker. The Caretaker wanted to examine the Maquis to determine whether or not they were sporocystian lifeforms as he was, since he was dying and needed a lifeform similar to himself to care for the Ocampa people. Just one week later, the ''Intrepid''-class [[USS Voyager|USS Voyager]], under the command of Captain Kathryn Janeway, left Deep Space 9 to pursue Chakotay's ship. It was also transported to the Delta Quadrant, suffering heavy casualties in the process. Captain Janeway invited Chakotay aboard; although he was angered to learn that Tuvok was really Janeway's security officer, he cooperated with Voyager to search for B'Elanna Torres, his Maquis engineer, and Harry Kim, the Starfleet ensign assigned to operations aboard Voyager. The two crewmembers were found, but Voyager and the Val Jean were attacked by the Kazon-Ogla, a sect of the Kazon race which claimed the Ocampa homewold as its territory. Outgunned, Chakotay decided to transport his crew to Voyager and ram one of the Kazon ''Predator''-class warships with the Val Jean, inflicting serious damage and tipping the battle in favor of Voyager. The Caretaker died around the same time, leaving his array open to plunder by the Kazon. Rather than use the array to transport Voyager home, Captain Janeway ordered it destroyed in order to protect the Ocampa. (VOY: "Caretaker") Because of this decision, she offered the Maquis provisional Starfleet commissions. She and Chakotay agreed the two crews would need to cooperate and learn to trust one another in order to return to the Alpha Quadrant. Chakotay became her first officer, as Voyager's original first officer had been killed and Chakotay already had Starfleet experience. However, Janeway was hesitant to assign senior positions to any of the other Maquis, especially those who had not previously completed Starfleet training. The first conflict was seen when Chakotay recommended the ill-tempered B'Elanna Torres to replace the deceased chief engineer over Lieutenant Joe Carey, who was the assistant engineer and next in line for promotion. Janeway balked, believing that Torres was too untrained and hostile for the position. Some of the Maquis indicated a willingness to rebel against Janeway and take over the ship, although Chakotay immediately chastised them. However, Chakotay challenged Janeway's authority by calling for Torres in engineering during a crisis. Later, Torres showed her great skill after working with Janeway to develop a resolution to the crisis, and Janeway decided that promoting Torres over Carey was an important sign of trust. Carey grudgingly accepted Torres as the new chief engineer, but he was gracious and congratulated her, which was an important early step in the Starfleet-Maquis cooperation aboard the ship. (VOY: "Parallax") Any residual hostility between the two crews quickly vanished, and confrontations were isolated. Tuvok began development of a holodeck training simulation called Insurrection Alpha, which would train his Starfleet security officers to deal with a possible Maquis mutiny, but he abandoned work on the holoprogram only a few weeks after Voyager became stranded in the Delta Quadrant; the crews were integrating so well together that he feared his program would spark off the very mutiny he was trying to prevent. (VOY: "Worst Case Scenario") Some Maquis crewmembers were still unused to working in a Starfleet environment, and with Chakotay's support, Tuvok designed a training regimen to make them accustomed to Starfleet protocol, although it took a near-death experience to encourage them to work together properly. (VOY: "Learning Curve") Captain Janeway and Lieutenant Commander Chakotay became close friends and confidantes; by 2373, she felt he was the most invaluable member of her crew. (VOY: "Scorpion") Despite the cooperation, Starfleet still believed that the Maquis were a liability, and requested their "status" once Voyager began receiving and transmitting data streams to the Alpha Quadrant thanks to the Pathfinder Project. Janeway was stunned, as she considered the Maquis part of her crew rather than untrustworthy passengers, although Chakotay assured her these attitudes would be common and an issue that Voyager would eventually need to confront. (VOY: "Life Line") Their trust in one another was not without its tests; in 2376, Voyager crewmember and former Borg drone Seven of Nine began experimenting with a cortical processing subunit to increase her efficiency in processing information. The device malfunctioned, and Seven began to link random events together into an extravagant conspiracy theory. One theory, revealed to Chakotay, involved the Federation and the Cardassians cooperating to establish a military presence in the Delta Quadrant, using a tetryon reactor taken from the Caretaker's array and a graviton catapult designed by an alien named Tash. Another theory, told to Janeway, implicated Chakotay as the leader of a resurrected Maquis rebellion which would use the catapult to strike Federation and Cardassian targets. Janeway and Chakotay began to regard one another with suspicion, but after examining Seven's alcove and her data, they realized that her claims were far-fetched. They mutually decided not to make mention of their temporary paranoia in their logs. (VOY: "The Voyager Conspiracy") Consolidating Strength Back in the Alpha Quadrant, the Maquis managed to not only survive, but to expand their influence and consolidate their position inside the Demilitarized Zone in the two years following the Orias incident. The Maquis' good fortune came in large part thanks to massive upheavals inside the Cardassian empire. Following the destruction of the Obsidian Order the previous year (c.f. DS9: "The Die is Cast"), the Cardassian dissident movement managed to overthrow the Central Command and place power in the civilian Detapa Council. The situation in the Demilitarized Zone changed drastically with the sudden onset of the Klingon-Cardassian War in early 2372. The Klingon Empire launched a major assault against the Cardassian Union, acting under the belief that the recent revolution had been engineered by the Dominion. The Klingon invasion led to the occupation of more than a dozen outlying colonies, the destruction of a large portion of the Cardassian fleet, and massive damage to the Union's industrial infrastructure. (DS9: "The Way of the Warrior", "Rules of Engagement") With the Cardassians' eye turned inward and their military reduced to a third-rate power, the Maquis had nearly free reign of the DMZ. Additionally, the Klingons formed a secret, informal alliance with the Maquis. Aside from providing material assistance, the Klingons also provided the Maquis with thirty class-4 cloaking devices to mount on their ships. (DS9: "Blaze of Glory") The June Offensive The Maquis' greatest victories, however, came under the leadership of Michael Eddington. Eddington was a former Starfleet officer, a Lieutenant Commander assigned to command the Security detachment stationed on DS9. In late 2372, Eddington defected to the Maquis, taking with him a shipment of 12 industrial replicators that were part of a Federation relief shipment bound for Cardassia. (DS9: "For the Cause") In June of 2373, the Maquis attacked two Bolian freighters carrying selenium and rhodium nitrite. Using the materials from those captured cargos, the Maquis created a large cache of cobalt diselenide — a biogenic agent deadly to Cardassians. Eddington attacked the Cardassian colonies on Veloz Prime and Quatal Prime, poisoning the biospheres and making the planets uninhabitable for Cardassians. The Maquis announced their intention to "reclaim" those planets for themselves, and to launch similar attacks against all other Cardassian colonies inside the Demilitarized Zone. At the same time, Starfleet was vigilantly but fruitlessly pursuing Eddington, seeking to bring him to justice for his treason. Eddington attacked and disabled both the USS Defiant and the [[USS Malinche|USS Malinche]] in separate engagements. Thus provoked, Captain Sisko launched his own offensive inside the DMZ, in an attempt to capture Eddington. Sisko attacked the Maquis colony on Solosos III, using trilithium resin to poison the planet's atmosphere and make it uninhabitable for Humans for the next fifty years. Sisko then announced his intention to poison every single Maquis colony in order to end the Maquis threat. Horrified, Eddington turned over the remaining biogenic weapons and surrendered himself to Starfleet in order to prevent such an attack. (DS9: "For the Uniform") Sudden Death Barely a month later, Gul Dukat made the startling announcement that the Cardassian Union had agreed to become a part of the Dominion. The Cardassian military was immediately augmented by a large fleet of Jem'Hadar warships that entered the Alpha Quadrant through the Bajoran wormhole. Dukat, as the new leader of Cardassia, announced a grand offensive against all of Cardassia's enemies, primarily the Klingons and the Maquis. Dukat vowed to eliminate every last Maquis colony inside Cardassian territory within the space of three days. With the Jem'Hadar as allies, the Cardassians made good on that threat. Ignoring the treaty's restrictions, they launched a massive invasion of the Demilitarized Zone, rapidly and efficiently wiping out every Maquis colony. The Maquis attempted to put up a valiant fight, but the small raiders and fighters they possessed were hardly a match for the fearsome Jem'Hadar attack ships. (DS9: "By Inferno's Light") In the aftermath of the Cardassian and Dominion offensive, only small pockets of Maquis remained, isolated and completely impotent. Aside from those Maquis who had been captured by the Federation and imprisoned, the largest group of survivors were from Eddington's former cell on Athos IV — and even then, only a few dozen members managed to survive, usually ending up in Federation prisons. (DS9: "Blaze of Glory," VOY: "Hunters") The only large group of Maquis remaining were aboard the Voyager. They learned that the Maquis had been massacred when Seven of Nine learned how to use an ancient Hirogen communications network to contact the Alpha Quadrant in 2374. One of Chakotay's old friends, Sveta, wrote him a letter from prison explaining the situation. (VOY: "Hunters") The news was met with mixed emotions. Engineer B'Elanna Torres discovered that she felt no overwhelming pain over the death of some of her closest friends, and began running dangerous holodeck programs without the safeties in order to inflict physical pain on herself, wanting to at least feel something (She eventually got over her suicidal attitude during the debut mission of the Delta Flyer). (VOY: "Extreme Risk") Some former rebels escaped capture, including Teero Anaydis. Teero refused to let the idea of the Maquis die, and discovery of Voyager safe in the Delta Quadrant gave him an opportunity to try and resurrect the rebellion through his mind control plan from six years prior. In 2377, Teero intercepted a message from Tuvok's son, Sek, and implanted a subliminal message which forced Tuvok to recall Teero's experiments. Tuvok began attacking the Maquis crewmembers and gave them subconcious instructions from Teero through a mind-meld. The Maquis eventually took control of Voyager and nearly stranded its Starfleet crew on a planet in the Delta Quadrant. However, Tuvok was able to regain mental control and use another mind-meld to remove Teero's influence from the Maquis crew. (VOY: "Repression") Aftermath Only months after the utter destruction of the Maquis, the Federation was plunged into the Dominion War. The Maquis insurrection will be remembered as one of the primary causes leading to the war, albeit in an indirect way. The Maquis cause, though temporarily successful, had made the Cardassians so desperate that they were willing to sacrifice their independence for the security offered by the Dominion. The Maquis cause remains controversial even after its demise; opinions differ on whether the Maquis could ultimately have succeeded in repelling the Cardassians from the Demilitarized Zone and establishing their own independent state. Although they had the Cardassians on the run in early 2373 and victory appeared within reach, many argue that it is unlikely that the Maquis would have succeeded even had the Dominion not annexed Cardassia. Thus, in the aftermath of the Maquis' destruction, many Starfleet officers viewed the movement as a grand, and perhaps noble, lost cause. People *List of Maquis personnel Apocrypha In the novelization of the last episodes of Voyager, it was revealed that most of the Maquis contingent on the ship had accepted a Federation offer of full amnesty, and had opted to rejoin Starfleet and fight against the Dominion. This obviously is not canon (not least because the Dominion War ended a number of years before Voyager returned), but gives an interesting view of the final fate of the Maquis. de:Maquis fr:Maquis